5 ms·

I will argue Flash is far from dead. Just this week I used Flash. A Client wanted to flip through photos, have words fade in over a period of time, and at the

by dpcan 17y ago

I will argue Flash is far from dead. Just this week I used Flash. A Client wanted to flip through photos, have words fade in over a period of time, and at the end, the logo was to fly in, glow, and then blend into the background. This was a perfect place to use Flash. Would I have done this in HTML and Javascript? No. Would I have created it in some other software and exported it as a video? No. It came to a few Kb in size when all finished and looked fantastic. I look at it this way: Aftereffects is to Video as Flash is to a Web Page. Your goal is to create something awesome, but if you suck at the program, you'll end up with crap. If you think that throwing out Flash will take the annoying ads and bad user interfaces of the world with it you are dreaming. Flash is a nice system for creating some great animations and UI's and I don't see any reason for it to die.

ams6110 17y ago
What do you do for people like me who browse with plugins disabled but Javascript allowed?
- ryanpetrich 17y ago
  Or people like me who just want to get to the content and don't care about the fancy effects?
  - elblanco 17y ago
    If you are anything like me, just substitute "data" for "content" and we're on the same page. I think lots of people don't actually want to make their content/data easily available to others.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
rimantas 17y ago
Would I have done this in HTML and Javascript? No. A couple of lines in jQuery. Would work on iPhone too. CSS transitions and animation is a nice way to create simple (and not so simple animation). Work on iPhone too. Hardware accelerated.
- InclinedPlane 17y ago
  That's a misleading reply. What you can do in HTML/CSS/JS in a few lines (even with jQuery) or with, say, a day's work does not touch what one can do with the same amount of time using Flash (assuming proficient developers of both technologies). Perhaps the designs might be superficially similar, but they would not be identical. Perhaps on the web that's irrelevant, because the advantages of the native HTML solution will outweigh the facile glitz and glam of the Flash solution. But on an instantaneous aesthetic reaction gauge, the Flash design will probably win. And given the state of the industry (consumers, graphic designers, and relevant management) that aesthetic reaction is potent enough to cement a great many design decisions. A lot of that is changing, especially as expertise in building aesthetically pleasing sites in pure HTML has grown and spread, and as sophistication with web technologies has increased across the board (so that even managers and graphic designers start to understand the problems and limitations of Flash-based designs). But it's still there, and Flash is still a very strong player in the web game, and will be for some time to come. Likely until the tooling exists to allow designers to create pure HTML designs that match or exceed the aesthetics of Flash based designs with the same amount of work.
cookiecaper 17y ago
Flash is a bad deal technically. It is the most straightforward solution for the kind of things you describe which cements its place for a while just by itself, but you should see some reasons for it to die. It's a proprietary blob that Adobe controls. They can and have dropped support for non-conventional platforms in the past. You can't see what the Flash Player is doing. Adobe can at their leisure impose any kind of crazy restrictions on Flash content (because they control the Flash Player, which is required to watch Flash content, and its terms of distribution). Flash is an ugly marr upon the otherwise open standards needed for a rich web experience, because its fate is completely controlled by Adobe's interests. Adobe has far too much ownership for the kind of reach Flash has, it is dangerous and should depart. Flash Player itself is a behemoth and a hog. It spins up CPUs to full power without any need and in so doing causes heating issues, battery-life issues, and other bad things. It is inefficient and sad and not good. You should hope it dies so that you can actually watch full-screen video on non-Windows or non-x86 platforms at more than 15 FPS. Flash is not like After Effects; AE sits on one side of the production process and its results play on regular cinema projectors, DVDs, and many other formats, including open, non-proprietary formats (anything that can save and playback video, including hard disks). When you make something in Flash, you impose Flash Player upon all of its potential consumers (ignoring Gnash and others because they can't play very much). They have no choice but to allow the non-free Adobe blob on their machine if they want to consume your content. This is bad. Flash is bad all around in the long-term. It's a convenient tool for designers to get the effects clients want, which is why it pervades so deeply, and I agree that Flash will stay in the game until a better tool emerges (HTML5 advocates, this means you should be working on an HTML5 IDE that will replace the Flash IDE and provide an easy transition path for current Flash users), but Flash is not a good thing. It needs to die.
- wallflower 17y ago
  > It's a proprietary blob that Adobe controls. Check out a recent hot topic from the Adobe Flex mailing list. Basically the Adobe Lawyers rewrote the license agreement for Flex (Flex being Flash that uses an integration server) - it now disallows trying to make any server of your own that talks the same language their now very $$$ (no single CPU option) integration server does. "took a look at the FB4 Beta 2 License Agreement, and here's what I found: 2.4.7 Flash (R) Builder(R) with LiveCycle(R) Data Services(LCDS) Data Management Library. Your rights to this Software are limited. In order to (a) utilize the file called "fds.swc" (the "LCDS Library") to develop associations , (b) utilize the LCDS Library to develop offline capability, (c) use the application modeling plug-in, or (d) utilize the LCDS Library to develop a product that competes with LiveCycle Data Services or BlazeDS, you must obtain additional licensing rights from Adobe."

by dpcan 17y ago

ams6110 17y ago

What do you do for people like me who browse with plugins disabled but Javascript allowed?

ryanpetrich 17y ago
Or people like me who just want to get to the content and don't care about the fancy effects?
- elblanco 17y ago
  If you are anything like me, just substitute "data" for "content" and we're on the same page. I think lots of people don't actually want to make their content/data easily available to others.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

rimantas 17y ago

Would I have done this in HTML and Javascript? No. A couple of lines in jQuery. Would work on iPhone too. CSS transitions and animation is a nice way to create simple (and not so simple animation). Work on iPhone too. Hardware accelerated.

InclinedPlane 17y ago
That's a misleading reply. What you can do in HTML/CSS/JS in a few lines (even with jQuery) or with, say, a day's work does not touch what one can do with the same amount of time using Flash (assuming proficient developers of both technologies). Perhaps the designs might be superficially similar, but they would not be identical. Perhaps on the web that's irrelevant, because the advantages of the native HTML solution will outweigh the facile glitz and glam of the Flash solution. But on an instantaneous aesthetic reaction gauge, the Flash design will probably win. And given the state of the industry (consumers, graphic designers, and relevant management) that aesthetic reaction is potent enough to cement a great many design decisions. A lot of that is changing, especially as expertise in building aesthetically pleasing sites in pure HTML has grown and spread, and as sophistication with web technologies has increased across the board (so that even managers and graphic designers start to understand the problems and limitations of Flash-based designs). But it's still there, and Flash is still a very strong player in the web game, and will be for some time to come. Likely until the tooling exists to allow designers to create pure HTML designs that match or exceed the aesthetics of Flash based designs with the same amount of work.

cookiecaper 17y ago

Flash is a bad deal technically. It is the most straightforward solution for the kind of things you describe which cements its place for a while just by itself, but you should see some reasons for it to die. It's a proprietary blob that Adobe controls. They can and have dropped support for non-conventional platforms in the past. You can't see what the Flash Player is doing. Adobe can at their leisure impose any kind of crazy restrictions on Flash content (because they control the Flash Player, which is required to watch Flash content, and its terms of distribution). Flash is an ugly marr upon the otherwise open standards needed for a rich web experience, because its fate is completely controlled by Adobe's interests. Adobe has far too much ownership for the kind of reach Flash has, it is dangerous and should depart. Flash Player itself is a behemoth and a hog. It spins up CPUs to full power without any need and in so doing causes heating issues, battery-life issues, and other bad things. It is inefficient and sad and not good. You should hope it dies so that you can actually watch full-screen video on non-Windows or non-x86 platforms at more than 15 FPS. Flash is not like After Effects; AE sits on one side of the production process and its results play on regular cinema projectors, DVDs, and many other formats, including open, non-proprietary formats (anything that can save and playback video, including hard disks). When you make something in Flash, you impose Flash Player upon all of its potential consumers (ignoring Gnash and others because they can't play very much). They have no choice but to allow the non-free Adobe blob on their machine if they want to consume your content. This is bad. Flash is bad all around in the long-term. It's a convenient tool for designers to get the effects clients want, which is why it pervades so deeply, and I agree that Flash will stay in the game until a better tool emerges (HTML5 advocates, this means you should be working on an HTML5 IDE that will replace the Flash IDE and provide an easy transition path for current Flash users), but Flash is not a good thing. It needs to die.

wallflower 17y ago
> It's a proprietary blob that Adobe controls. Check out a recent hot topic from the Adobe Flex mailing list. Basically the Adobe Lawyers rewrote the license agreement for Flex (Flex being Flash that uses an integration server) - it now disallows trying to make any server of your own that talks the same language their now very $$$ (no single CPU option) integration server does. "took a look at the FB4 Beta 2 License Agreement, and here's what I found: 2.4.7 Flash (R) Builder(R) with LiveCycle(R) Data Services(LCDS) Data Management Library. Your rights to this Software are limited. In order to (a) utilize the file called "fds.swc" (the "LCDS Library") to develop associations , (b) utilize the LCDS Library to develop offline capability, (c) use the application modeling plug-in, or (d) utilize the LCDS Library to develop a product that competes with LiveCycle Data Services or BlazeDS, you must obtain additional licensing rights from Adobe."